Head Dream 100 - Women's Review

The Dream 100 will have your feet floating on a cloud of comfort and provide a cushy, feature filled ride, but don't expect the most responsive or performance-oriented boot of the bunch.

Performance Comparison

Comfort and Fit

The Dream is lined with soft faux fur that help you slide your foot easily into the boot and is one of the easiest to get on, even when they've been sitting in a cold car overnight. The Dream's liner is thick and feels forgiving in the boot and the tongue and liner stick up out of the top of the shell over 2.25", creating an extra forgiving, soft flex feel. This boot comes with a “lady wedge” that is meant to go into the shell at the heel to take up extra space and reduce heel lift. We tried it out and it definitely makes the boot a snugger fit and forces your forefoot into the front more. The Atomic Hawx Ultra 110 allowed the least amount of heel lift of the boots we tested.

The Dream 100s have a 100mm wide last for a lady with an “average” width forefoot. We noticed that they felt slightly tighter around our forefoot than other 100mm last boots like the Nordica Speed Machine 105 W, but not as tight as the low volume Lange RX 110 LV - Women's.

Downhill Ski Performance

This is not the area where the Dream 100 shined. Our testers think the Dreams are just okay in the performance department. They had some stiff (haha) competition in this department this year; the Tecnica Mach 1 outshined the rest of the competition with their snappy, responsive performance. The Dreams have a “soft and stiffer” flex adjustment. With the stiffer flex setting the boot definitely had a stiffer feel but we didn't notice a significant difference in responsiveness or performance. Overall they feel closer to the 90 flex of the Salomon XPro than the 100 flex advertised.

Features

The Dream is loaded with extra features; it's the most “featured” boot in this review. We're not sure of the effectiveness of them all but it has a lot. The first one we noticed was the Double Power lever on the two upper buckles that allow for more leverage to really crank those buckles tight. Our testers never feel like they need their buckles so tight that they need extra leverage, but for some ladies, this may be quite convenient, especially if they have slimmer calves. This feature does add extra bulk and we find when unbuckling, the lever can get caught and make it more difficult to undo your buckle.

As we mentioned above these boots came with the “lady wedge” and although we're not super psyched on the name, they do help to reduce volume and reduce heel lift. We did not find the soft/stiff flex adjustment feature particularly useful. We like the Tecnica Mach 1's custom liner that seems to create a perfect fit with the shell resulting in increased performance, and we like the Lange RX 110 LV - Women's simple streamlined features.

Warmth

This boot's comfortable fit and cushy liner allows this boot to feel incredibly warm. Once we put the lady wedge in the boot, it did not feel as warm because it was a tighter fit and started to cut off circulation. As always, warmth is 90 percent fit and if your boot is too tight, your feet could go numb, resulting in cold feet. The Salomon XPro 100 and the Nordica Speed Machines are equally warm.

Durability

We have not noticed any durability issues with the Dream 110. We anticipate after some time the cream-colored fur lining will start looking dirty and matted, which is less appealing. Also, the shell color and general appearance of this boot are our least favorite and we prefer the look of the Tecnica Mach 1 and Nordica Speedmachine 105s.

Best Application

This is a comfortable boot for a woman with an average width forefoot. She can be cruising the groomers of venturing off-piste, but we would not recommend it for someone who wants to push her limits on the steeps. We would instead recommend the Tecnica Mach 1 105 for that purpose. We enjoyed this boot paired with the Head Great Joy ski.

Value

At $500, the Dream 100 is a great value, but for a higher performing boot at the same price, we recommend the Dalbello Kyra 95 ID, our Best Buy winner.

Conclusion